The Midnight Show
by Poseidon's Daughter
Summary: Amarant Coral reacts.


Post Notes: Been a while! Trying to remember how to write. Text from the "I Want to be Your Canary." segment of the game.

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**The Midnight Show.**

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The footpath is meant for lighter, finer limbs than his to travel upon. The man ends up kicking up mud and muck and the greedy earth beneath his feet threatens to swallow him right up. In spite of the rain, or perhaps because of it, he is sweating and panting from his excursions. He could slow down. That would help. He could slow down only Amarant Coral really does not DO slow. He is not quite sure _how_ to do slow.

Just like he cannot step carefully or tread lightly. Just like he cannot plan in advance or conjure up diplomatic solutions. He does what he does and he feels what he feels when and where and for whom he feels and does it for …A headache if he has ever had one, that is for sure, but there you are. That is the truth of the matter. He does not plan. He does not reach agreements. He simply moves and runs and fights. He bites and claws. He _reacts_.

Tramping and traversing through swampy underbrush, balanced on a path meant for hollow boned dragoons; with only the waning, piss poor, glow of the twin moons for light, miserable and sodden and cussing wildly under his breath, _this_ is Amarant _reacting._

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_No cloud, no squall shall hinder us!_

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There is no guard and the city, still only half reconstructed, is quiet. Amarant has no idea why this surprises him. It should not. But he stands there splashed in mud, in the middle of the market square with his soaked mane of hair and continuous rain dripping water into his eyes, anyway.

He has half a mind to turn around. Go back to Treno. Smoke out a couple bounties and promptly drink and gamble the earnings all away. _Maybe_ find Lani. If she is all done hanging with the moogles. If she has worked through that yet. And if she promises not to call him Red. Then _maybe_ he will find her. The woman is not nearly so annoying as she pretends to be once she gets a bit of liquor in her system. And to his fevered mind, which could not wait until daybreak to make this journey, the entire thing seems as good of a plan as any.

This is _stupid_ anyway – _whatever_ 'this' is, is stupid. And realizing he looks like a giant in comparison to the overall scale of objects and houses in this town, Amarant is suddenly so far past caring that that his _half_ of mind ready to leave is now a healthy _three-fourths_ of a mind ready to leave and 'this' is _disgustingly _melodramatic. All of it. Every bit screams of it. What with the pouring rain, the long cast shadows, and the dead of night setting. Melodrama. This is all far more suited for Zidane's theatrical sensibilities than his. _Theatrical_, after all, is another thing Amarant Coral simply does not DO.

And yet, here Amarant stands.

Amarant stands here because Zidane has already had his great climax, has already had his great reveal. Zidane already had his curtain call and is now in the process of living out his epilogue.

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_Bring my beloved Dagger to me!_

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Zidane is lost to the throes of happily ever after while Amarant is stuck in the ever-annoying present. Stuck _reacting_ and reduced to carrying on and making scenes. Not that anyone is around to see this scene. But it is the principle of the thing that has him out of sorts and his temper only just held in check. (Honest.)

He is going to turn around. Screw this. Like he even needs to get his ass kicked by Fre-. By Crescent. Because, really, that's the only way he can think to word it. Crescent was going to _kick his ass_ if he went through with this fool's errand. Whatever the fool errand was. Or is. The revelation hit him just this afternoon, sitting in a darkened Treno bar, and with more ire than one could rightly lay claim to, Amarant had _reacted_. Right that second, resenting every step, he _reacted. _He _reacted _only there is a mental block that keeps him from fully forming thought on the matter. Something that keeps him from touching it, keeps him skittering around the subject, keeps him from getting too close. It keeps him from thinking too deeply about his actions and if he is purposely keeping himself in the proverbial dark, so what? So bloody what?

Alexander's freakin' holy _wings_. With no white chocobo, no armor, nor pretty, winning words; with no intention or promises of even following through, Amarant never signed up for this role.

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_The time for our departure is long past. Where is Cornelia?_

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Because this so clearly a page out of Zidane's book, out of some great tragic comedy, there is a figure waiting for him at the gates. That is how it goes, isn't it? That is in the script. But because Amarant is not Zidane and because fate hates him and because this is not some grand and noble gesture on his part and because he is _tired_ and angry and _that is just his damn luck_, the Salamander Flame waits until he is standing five paces away before spitting at the Burmecian's stupidly light feet by way of greeting.

Because Amarant is mature like that.

If he has offended Fratley, he cannot well tell it. There is a slight rustling of grey fur, like a light wind rushing over tall grass, and that is about it. Cool and serene as the untouched surface of a lake, that one is. Amarant cannot stand it and bares his teeth like a wild thing, closely watching and darkly hoping for ripples. It is not the confrontation he expected but a confrontation nevertheless. And surely the dragoon is someone to contend with. On some level, he must have known that he must square off with this man. Eventually or now or not at all or behind _her_ back. And, oh, Crescent really _would_ kick his ass if that last one were it to pass. But Amarant does not plan. He has never thought of what he would say to this man, built up as an almost demigod by his once-was comrade. He is not the one with whom this scene was meant to play out. So Amarant stands there, rumpled and road-weary and bored with this experiment in futility and he cannot summon up a single word to bark or breathe or arm himself with.

Fratley solves the problem, salvages the situation and keeps up this high handed thespian act by speaking first:

"You are here for her."

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_All my fortunes at thy foot, I lay._

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Fratley speaks first, sees through him at a glance, and it is all Amarant can do not to spit again because he does not need this absent minded _rodent _doing him any favors. Yet because it is issued as a challenge, because of the confrontational tone, Amarant's answer is instantaneous. With no pause or heartbeat between. He responds. He reacts_._

"Yeah, I _am_."

Then it occurs to him: He does what he does and he feels what he feels when and where and for whom he feels and does it for …a headache if he has ever had one. And there is a kind of terror mixed with endless aggravation in that, because now he is here _for her_ and with this new knowledge he does not know how to _react _next.

But Amarant Coral is not one to do things by halves.

"…I am." He grounds out, a moment later. Repeating and reaffirming, little more than a guttural grunt, without any of the elegance one may secretly expect with the utterance of such insipidly irrevocable statements. Needling at Fratley's pride, as though the two men could _possibly_ be on the same level in her mind. As though she and Amarant were lovers or on even _halfway_ friendly terms. As though there was some basis for this. As though he has _any right at all_ in the matter of being here _for her _and,

_"_I am."

He is.

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**The Midnight Show: End.**

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End file.
